Agents and Agencies

I've thought a lot over the last few years about how our world is organised, and how it has changed.  Namely, that everyone outsources. And this is ever-increasing, so that you get more and more layers to everything, and everyone gets more specialised.

The New York Times tweeted this yesterday:

U.S. Strategy to Fight Terrorism Increasingly Uses Proxies http://t.co/2RB35w5XdL
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 30, 2014

Well, why not the fight against terrorism? Everything else specialises, and farms out what it is inefficient to do itself. It's the story of our age: everything uses third parties, agencies, proxies, aggregators.

I work in stockbroking operations. Since 2008 the stock market has been DEAD. For the last 3 years everyone has expected the coming year to pick up. Now we're saying 2015. Surely 2015? It has to pick up sometime!

In the meantime, as conventional brokerage has been DEAD, companies have been scrambling. The growth area (well, "growth" is a bit much - let's say "segment everyone is scrambling to") is to form small - tiny - advisory firms and build up a list of clients, and pay bigger brokers to do your trade execution. These days not only is the cost of running a brokerage firm prohibitive, but the compliance onus is very high. Only medium-to-large firms can do it now. Everyone else has given it up and is operating these tiny, ever-morphing advisory groups.  Many of those groups do work for other advisory groups, so for example, Broker A has client Firm B which has direct clients but also has a client Firm C which has its own clients, one of which is Firm D..... So you end up with very diffuse, multi-layered business and client structures.

Another growth area is portfolio "wrap" services and reporting services. These are aggregators, who take in data feeds from brokers and custodians and create custom reporting, data mining or portfolio management for clients. They might do this under their own banner, or offer "white labelling" so that reports are branded for another firm who passes them on to its clients.

Among brokers, even larger players are using each other to perform some functions, or execute for some sectors of their business. No one is trying to do everything anymore.

Everywhere the same thing is happening. Insurance: a million different small firms, underwitten by the old large ones that used to do it all. And various aggregator businesses specialising in filtering options and helping you choose.  Utilities: as governments have privatised services like electricity, we now have multiple providers, but it goes further: the electricity provider uses a billing service to manage its billing, and on-sells debts to a debt collection agency. I would not be surprised to learn that beyond each of these there are a further two or three "layers" or agents, responsible for different portions of the work.

Governments privatise services when they become too costly to run, which is essentially all of them in these days of low-taxing low-spending governments. Companies take them over and quickly work out they are not profitable, so the companies become more efficient and specialised and farm out or sell off the bits they can't afford to do to someone else.

Is it good?  Is it bad?  These questions were asked more often in the previous decade. We're all used to it now (more or less), and on balance I think it's good. It makes commerce vibrant and varied, it keeps things nimble and fosters growth and change. And it spreads risk and limits damage: if one part goes wrong it doesn't affect the whole; another small part springs up to take its place. What I can't figure out is if, holistically speaking, measuring the whole system, it is more efficient or not. I'm sure that it is, but it's hard to quantify. But regardless, whether it is or not, it is now such a fact of business and life that it's just the way it is. We could no more unwind it than we could un-layer an onion.

Efficiency and Progress

Like many people I often wonder whether new ways are more efficient and I sometimes doubt they are. 
I'm also aware that automated systems allow much higher volume day to day so that we don't actually notice most of the efficiency gains, only the glaring non-gains.

Take these examples:

• Melbourne public transport: Myki vs paper tickets; automation vs tram conductors
• Petrol stations: self-serve vs full service
• Supermarket check-outs: self-serve vs cashier
• Stockbroking operations: "straight through processing" from trade date to settlement, vs the old days

Tram conductors vs ticket inspectors

When tram conductors were phased out in Melbourne some years ago in favour of automated ticketing, it did not seem to increase efficiency. Tram conducting was a good entry-level job for young people, and welcomed those who had been unemployed, were inexperienced or were covered in piercings. With almost no exceptions that I remember, they appeared to do a good job and some seemed to really like it. It fostered community on the trams, and made the system pretty easy for travellers.

When the tram conductors went, fare evasion seemed to immediately go up, and within a short time it seemed that whatever money was being saved on tram conductors was being spent on ticket inspectors. I would be very surprised if that cost has gone down.

On the other hand, could they really bring back tram conductors today? Would there still be people willing to take those jobs? Working nights and weekends as well? Could we really go back to leather satchels, uniforms, hole punches and paper tickets?

Long time since Melbourne streets have been this free of traffic
(photo: nicksarebi/Flickr Creative Commons)

Myki vs paper tickets

Myki is a pretty good system, from my experience. It really does seem to charge correctly, and charge you the cheapest available fare (though there have been issues with that). It's easy. It beats paper tickets that get bent or soggy or lost or forgotten (or maybe that was just me).

But there's a problem with Myki. You need to top up your ticket before you get to the station, as the lines there are long. There seem to be fewer places to top up a Myki than used to sell paper tickets, though maybe that will change.

Also, 'touching off' is very inefficient. Getting off a tram and touching off while you're being rushed down the stairs is hard to accomplish, and coming off a train it takes a LONG time to get through the turnstiles as everyone touches off in turn. It takes way longer than it used to for people to feed their paper tickets through. That will no doubt improve.

Supermarket check-out: self-serve vs cashier

I've mentioned before that I'm not an early adopter. I stuck to full-service petrol stations for as long as the last one existed in the southeast of this city, and I initially completely ignored supermarket self-service checkouts. 

I started using them when I had a small basket of stuff and the lines at the cashiers were long. They took a little while to get used to but after a very short time (say about, oooh, a year and a half) I began using them regularly. 

I have to say I quite like the short friendly chat with the cashier who scans your stuff, and it will be a shame when that goes (not to mention the lost jobs of course). But as former CBA CEO Ralph Norris said a decade ago when banks were closing branches, "We can't keep maintaining costly branches just because people want a social experience when they go to the bank." (It was something like that - I can't find the exact quote online because it was a long time ago, so I'm paraphrasing and perhaps I'm being unfair. But this remains one of my favourite PR mis-steps and quotable Evil Bank moments, so I hope I have it right).

It took awhile for us to accept pumping our own petrol, but we eventually did. We're accepting self-serve checkouts a lot faster from what I see.

Are they more efficient?

It's an interesting question. The answer must be yes, in terms of cost. Even factoring in people to show you how to use them and people to come over and correct your mistakes or unlock your DVDs, it's still more efficient, because those things are temporary.  Employing three people to help users, who will also perform other duties while they're there, is cheaper than employing six people as cashiers plus the people performing other duties.

On the radio today people were discussing self service, and the consensus was it was all very wasteful and inefficient, because of customers being dishonest, time taken to fix errors, etc.  And of course it would be quite easy to lie and steal when scanning and weighing things. No doubt plenty do.  Interestingly though, the system (at least at this stage) makes no attempt to guard against that.  

To me that says they've factored it in. The system has to be easy to use to keep customer goodwill, at least until they have a critical mass of acceptance. So they might be luring us in making it easy to use until they make it more theft-proof later.  Or, the cost efficiencies are so great they are prepared to wear some loss from petty theft in exchange for the automation.  

And this is the big picture on these types of automation: companies are prepared to pay to get these systems in - even, perhaps, to create short-term inefficiencies - because in the long term, they are needed.  

I don't think they always get their projections right though. I'm sure Melbourne public transport vastly underestimated the cost of ticket inspectors, Myki and Myki upgrades. 

But one thing we don't as customers or users necessarily notice, is the huge jump in volumes that happens during the transformation period while things are being automated.  Can you imagine full-service petrol stations now, with the number of cars that line up at petrol bowsers? Instead of each person doing their own (even factoring in those who dawdle inside and browse the shelves before paying), imagine the same petrol station with one or two attendants pumping everyone's petrol, as there used to be.

It's the same with tram conductors (though I hate to admit it, because I've clung to my tram-conductors-are-cheaper-than-ticket-inspectors belief for so long). Could a single conductor on a tram cope with the number of people passing through now?  As it is, three burly ticket inspectors at each super stop can barely cope with the numbers.

Stockmarket operations - straight through processing 

Now to my world. I work in stockbroking operations (the "back office"). I've worked in this industry for 13 years, as a processor, supervisor, manager and project manager. Long before my time, the settlement of trades was manual. I mean completely manual, as in collecting bits of paper from the trading floor, running between broking houses and the stock exchange, and typing things into computers.

These days when we bitch about a manual trade booking, we mean a trade has fed in without a reference number and we have to manually key it in so it books to the right account. 

But the thing is, those manual trade bookings are actually still a real headache. Because we no longer have the teams of people that used to manage all the manual processes, 2 people can manage the electronic bookings and settlements for quite a large stockbroker. But it only takes a few manual trades to add a lot of work to their day. (And it's not always as simple as typing in a number of course).  There is also increased complexity in systems, because enhancements had been added over the years and more permutations in booking and settlement are possible. This was made possible, of course, by automation.

So is trade settlement more efficient?  Absolutely - no doubt. 

Do we use less paper? No - possibly we use more, what with reporting, compliance and audit requirements.

Are there fewer people working? Yes.

Do those people work fewer hours? On the whole, yes - but work is a lot more condensed than it used to be. These days there are no smoking breaks and sometimes no lunch breaks, and people in general work at full speed throughout their day (and that, of course, is called "productivity").

When I review or compile our statistics each month, I see approximately 50% of trades are "STP" (straight through processing, i.e. fully automated). That figure is too low, of course, but still, 50% is a huge number of trades that just do their thing without any intervention required by us at all.

In a nutshell

Does automation make things more efficient?  System-wide, on the whole yes.  At a personal or experiential level? Probably mostly yes, but as customers or users we don't always feel it.

What do you think? 

Do you miss tram conductors? 

Do you hate, love or grudgingly accept automation?

Calculate Your Most Efficient Trajectory, and other walking games

Could not believe my eyes when I saw this madness on (er...) 9GAG the other day. 

OMG IT'S NOT JUST ME THAT DOES THIS.

Kids play walking games: 

Step on a crack, break your mother's back;  

Step on a line, break your father's spine

So do adults.

Here are the walking games I still play - cannot help playing - every time I walk:

1. Even Stevens
2. The Point of No Trace of Origin
3. Most Efficient Trajectory

Even Stevens

I no longer try to avoid stepping on lines. Please! I managed to stop that madness in my twenties! But I do have a thing quite often where I have to keep track of how I step on lines and keep things "even" with both feet.

Example: 

I've just stepped on a line with the ball of my left foot - therefore I have to do the same with my right foot. But so I don't stop short and shuffle my feet around and look like a weirdo I keep walking "naturally" but keep count of what I step on with both feet, until I can even the score of each item with the other foot. So the count I keep in my head might go something like: left one ball of foot, left one heel, right one middle of foot, left two ball of foot...

Of course at some point it starts to get too hard to keep track, in which case I DO quickly do a weird foot shuffle or stop and swap feet, so I can keep my feet even.

The Point of No Trace of Origin

I do this while city walking, when I've just passed through an intersection or turned a corner. Imagine someone got a snapshot image of you walking at a given point in or after the intersection. Based on your position on the footpath, distance from the curb or corner, length of your stride and angle of your body, at many points it must be possible to look at the snapshot and figure out whether you got there by crossing the street or turning the corner. At some point, as you go a little further, there is a point at which it would no longer be possible to tell which way you had come.  

As I walk I try to pinpoint where that point is. Sometimes I try to pass through an intersection in a way that would give away as few clues as possible as to whether I had come from straight behind or from around the corner. 

Most Efficient Trajectory

Like the 9GAG cartoon at the top - but in my case with frustratingly little math skill. Try and estimate or calculate the most efficient route between two points. That might not be the shortest one; it could be the one with fewest angles, the least foot traffic, more downhill slopes, etc. I spend a bit of time trying to figure out at what distance/number of obstacles a zigzag or series of corners is more or less efficient than a straight line, etc.  This is not to avoid walking, which I love - just another attempt to be more efficient through silly shortcuts.

Here's how I know I'm not the only one doing this:

Adult walking games in popular culture

I remember two references:

The first was an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry walks his date to his apartment door and tells her about a game he plays where he pretends he's being chased by murderers and when he gets to his door he has to unlock and open it as fast as possible to elude them.

Who hasn't played that game?

The second was a short film I saw years and years ago as a kid. When I was a kid, when you went to see a movie it went like this: ads; short film; interval; movie.  Shorts were a mixed bag. Most were boring, some were genius. This particular short one of the best I ever saw. It followed a Londoner on his morning commute into the city. All the dialogue took place in his head.  He is standing on a bus and looks around and picks three or four other passengers to "race" with. He assigns each a name like "Green Cardigan", "Umbrella" and "Bowler Hat". When they all get off the bus he starts narrating (in his head) in the style of a horse race: And they're off! Green Cardigan gets off to a fine start but Bowler Hat is way back... The narration continues as it shows him hurrying through the busy streets, taking little shortcuts, veering through foot traffic, all the while keeping an eye on the others as he tries to reach the finish first.  It's obvious these are all regular commuters going to the same street for work and he plays this game with different people every day. There are a couple of tense moments where he thinks he won't “win”, then he's on the home stretch and in front of everyone. Just as he's grinning smugly and striding to the "finish" he realises Bowler Hat is not behind him as he thought but in front. He gets such a shock at being about to lose the "race", that he loses his sanity – the film ends on a freeze frame as he cries out and grabs  "Bowler Hat" by the shoulder.

Do you play walking games? Tell me one!

I'll Bring the Salt and the White Beans

In the giddy days after finishing work late last year, after ten years at the same financial services behemoth (which got behemoth-er in my last months there, bought by a Large US Bank in the midst of the GFC), I had plans to organise and declutter my home which I listed here.

I did achieve some of those organisation goals: these ones:

• sorted linen cupboard
• sorted kitchen appliances
• cleaned out sideboard
• new curtains for the girls' rooms - also sorted and tidied the girls' rooms
• carpets steam-cleaned
• house sprayed for bugs and spiders

The rest are still On The List.

But the one I achieved which gave me the most satisfaction, was:

• sorted the kitchen pantry.

For something I wanted to do for about a year and a half, it took me one evening to do it. Admittedly, that was one hard-working, tiring evening. But the result has warmed my heart ever since. I feel organised -grown-up - efficient and capable. I feel like superwoman!

Sometimes I still, weeks later, open my pantry doors and just take a little look and sigh in contentment.

I know this is not what life's all about, but it has even so given me great, quiet joy.

For we have gone from this:

To this:

See? Even the LIGHT is better! (like any good before and after shot!)

Yes, it's true - I used part of my redundancy pay-out to buy a hundred plastic containers! And I'd do it again, I tell you!


You find surprising things when you clean out a pantry. For years we have just stuffed things in there and at times I have found myself looking for things I am sure I had, but not finding them - then after a few despairing attempts at pawing through the various packets and containers, thinking "Huh. I guess I don't have that after all," and buying it on my next shopping trip.

Hence in the great clean-out, I found four packets of rock salt.

And my husband has a similar obsession, clearly, with white beans.

Not sure what's going on there, because he never cooks anything using white beans.


But those strange, unorganised and chaotic days are far behind us now. Thanks to my pantry project, we are now completely organised, efficient and healthy, providing lovingly prepared, healthful and interesting meals every night, with time to maintain our active love lives as well as provide quality time for the children.

Ha ha!



What's on your to-do list? Have you achieved anything recently that has changed your life?

In Pursuit of a Good Commute

Working in stockbroking for the last 15 years, I have long worked in the CBD.
Living in Suburbia Superbia, this means commuting.

PART ONE: In The Olden Days

In my life BC (before children), I took public transport to work: the tram back when I lived in "Zone 1", and the train once I moved to the 'burbs.  I used to enjoy the train because it was roomier than the tram, air-conditioned, and I could sit and read a book.  (Anyone living in Melbourne will recognize this was some time ago, as the trains during rush hour are no longer roomy, and it's rare to find space to read a book).

When I returned to work after maternity leave, having to drop off and/or pick up the girls from daycare (open between 7am and 6pm), starting work at 8am and finishing at 5pm, the train was no longer an option. I wouldn't have got door to door in time.

And so began my life as one of those horrible, selfish, stupid single-occupier car drivers who congest the freeways, hog our city's resources and increase our carbon footprint.

PART TWO: When I Had A Watertight Excuse

Photo by Nationaal Archief via Flickr CC

Where we live, public transport from our house to the train stations is patchy. There is a bus that goes on the half-hour, between 6am and 6pm. I used this approximately two times, because: (1) I could only do it on a day I wasn't doing drop-off or pick-up; (2) I had to get up at 5:00am, then (3) I had to walk a kilometre to the bus-stop, which meant (4) I had to wear comfortable shoes and walking clothes or carry change of clothes/shoes with me, and despite all that (5) I could never catch the bus home from the station anyway, as the last one left at 6pm, which is later than my train from the city would arrive, so (6) I had to pay $12 for a taxi home from the station, thus wiping out the cost benefit of not driving.

All this is not a complaint you understand - we chose to live in a 3-bedroom house in the 'burbs (the audacity!) rather than squash our family into a flat closer in, or spend half a million on a townhouse in a sustainable urban village on the city fringe. I don't expect the government to underwrite my lifestyle or put on a million more train lines. I don't expect my employer to pay me to work half-days, work from home or set up branches in the eastern suburbs.  I don't expect to find work close to home paying the same money or offering the same career opportunities. I don't expect daycare centres to offer 24 hour service or schools to look after my children until evening.

What I would like, if it were a teensy bit possible, is for media types, urban planners, public commentators, inner-city dwellers and bicycle riders to STOP vilifying me for driving to work!!

PART THREE: Current Day

As Tom Vanderbilt points out in his excellent and compulsively readable book Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (And What It Says About Us), the reasons people commute and their relationship with commuting are complicated.
For example, who can understand this picture?

Sydney Hobart Yacht Race 1971 -
State Library of NSW

But also, consider these points about my own driving habits:

• At some point during the childcare years, we worked out that I did not have to be solely responsible for drop-off and pick-up, since my husband works closer to home than me, and sometimes starts work later. So he started taking them and picking them up 2 days, and the other 3 he dropped them off and I picked them up. This gave me 2 days where I did not have to drive to work. I did "try" to take the train on those days, but my efforts were sporadic. The main reason was time, or more accurately a bit of time and a lot of convenience. If I drive to the station and take the train, going to work takes an hour and twenty minutes. Coming home takes longer - I would not get home until 7pm. In comparison, driving takes 45 minutes. That's a BIG difference. Because as any working-at-the-office mother knows, the later you get home in the evenings, the more shitful the night goes for you and the kids, with the knock-on effects bleeding into the next day (kids are grumpier, mum is more stressed, dinner is rushed, everyone gets to bed later, prep is curtailed for the next day...).  So even when I "should" have used public transport, I usually drove, despite the cost and sometimes the guilt, because that half-hour difference was worth it.

• Currently I only work 3 days, and on 2 of those my husband is at home (he works weekends); which means for two of those days he looks after the kids, gets dinner, etc. As I am home more with the kids I don't feel as guilty about making sure I squeeze as much time as possible being by their sides, plus I am no longer exhausted every day. All of this means that the extra half-hour commute using public transport should no longer bother me on those 2 days, and I should easily be able to take the train to work. But.... I don't. I've got used to the comfort and convenience of driving my car.

Missouri W.P.A. Art Project, 1943
(Library of Congress) - via Flickr

• I have a love-hate relationship with my commute. I wish it was shorter. I am not the world's best driver and am aware that the risk of an accident soars on the days I am run-down or just tired. I know all the costs - petrol, tolls, city parking, risk of crashes, extra wear and tear, and the impact of less movement on my fitness. But I love listening to the news and talk shows on the radio, the familiar banter between Red Symons and Jon Faine, AM with Tony Eastley (and the thoroughly excellent PM with Mark Colvin on the way home) and even (when I am running late), guiltily catching the beginning of the Jon Faine show during the time I should be at work. I like doing my make-up sitting in the carpark five minutes before I go up to work. I like being able to cart stuff in and bring stuff home. (Compare coming home on the train with dry-cleaning).  I do miss walking, which I used to do a lot of. When I do take the train and walk the 2 blocks to work, I notice and enjoy interacting with the environment (pavement, air, sights and sounds) the way you don't in a car. On those days I wish I could walk to work, or catch a tram or a train from walking distance to home.  But I think mostly I am like the commuters mentioned in  Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (And What It Says About Us), who name the daily commute as the worst part of their day, but when asked what they would like instead, nominate "a shorter commute", rather than "no commute". 

TRAFFIC: Why We Drive The Way We Do (And What It Says About Us)

Here are some excepts that stood out for me from this totally fascinating book:

"98% of US commuters favor public transportation for others." - Headline in The Onion

"As [traffic increases], things get worse for everyone, but as there is still a gain for each driver (getting to work, getting home), that exceeds the gain from not driving, and as the loss is shared by all, people keep joining the freeway."

"...once you have shelled out for a car, the comparatively marginal cost of another trip is barely noticeable - in other words there is little incentive not to drive."

"...a half-mile is as long as planners believe the average person is willing to walk."

"The reason we see so many people on the roads, getting in our way, is that so many of them are doing things that used to be done at home. This, too, is a function of affluence, but it's a complicated relationship. Do we drive to a restaurant for take-out food because we can afford it or because we are so busy trying to make money we have little choice?"

"One study that looked at the working poor found that those with a car were able to get around three times more quickly than those without one. Even people who do not own a car are more likely to commute by car than public transport."

"Trying to crack the commuter psyche is rather bewildering work. On the one hand, people seem to hate commuting.... On the other hand,... when people were asked to name an 'ideal' commute time, their mean response was not, as you might expect..., 'no commute', but sixteen minutes."

And finally, just because it's so good, enjoy "Mr Walker and Mr Wheeler" in Disney's Motor Mania (made in 1950, watched and loved by my family in the 70's, and still so relevant!)

How do you get to work? Do you commute? 

Do you hate it or is it not so bad?

A Surprisingly Easy and Lovely Week - but I'm very tired

The last 10 days my husband Y. has been away. I won't annoy the hard-working single parents I know and admire by saying "I was a single mum for a week!" as I know, I really do know, that it's not the same thing at all.
But it has been an interesting week.

It was not hard. I expected it to be a bit hard. I thought I'd be stressed and exhausted and angry.
Always the optimist, me.

I was not at all stressed, exhausted or angry - emotions that I tend to feel on a regular basis as do many mums I think.

On the contrary, I was relaxed, organised, calm and happy the whole time.

I know that sounds bad, but don't worry, my marriage is not on the skids and I do love my husband.
But I have always been something of a loner and very independent. I like being able to run my own show at home, do things how and when I want to do them, keep up with the household things I think are important and know my free time in the evenings and while the kids are occupied is 100% my own. I know that's not what life is all about, but to me it's a little bit lovely.

Though I like being married and Y. and I are tightly bonded and have a lot of laughs together, I have always found relationships a little... stressful, I suppose. And while I'm not going to fall into that thing of denigrating men by saying things like "it's like I have another kid" there is no denying that it can feel sometimes like everyone wants something all the time, and my teeth are set on edge by kids and husband all talking at me at the same time. So it's nice not to have that for a little while.

I wouldn't want this long-term of course. Even I get lonely, and there is no denying that two parents run a household (and raise kids) a lot easier than one.

At the simplest level, without Y. around I can't take the dog for a walk before the kids wake up, or nip out to the shops unless I take the kids with me. And there's no one to tidy the kitchen while I do laundry, do the morning drop-off at school so I can get to work on time, or pick up the slack when I lose my shit.

So these last 2 weeks, I did not lose my shit, not even inside my own head where the kids don't know I'm doing it. Where I am usually very organised, this week I was scary-robot-organised, because I had to be. I also decided I was going to keep up with everything and not let anything slide, to avoid the chaos-theory effect when little things keep adding to the pile until you have the full catastrophe at the end of the week and a crappy, catchy-up weekend. I figured the weekends should be free for the kids, who the first week especially, missed their daddy and felt a bit insecure at his absence.

Also, perhaps, if I'm honest, maybe I wanted to keep the house in really good shape (for our house) so I could show Y. that (a) my way is best and that's why we have to keep up with these various jobs I nag about every night, and (b) I'm not always an emotional stressed out wreck, I'm actually super capable and impressive.

So here's what I did:

• I used Smart Working Mother's tip to "commit to wash, dry and fold every single day". I folded and put away laundry every day so we didn't have (too many) baskets piled high around the living area.
• I made school lunches the night before, every single night.
• I tidied the kitchen and eating area every single night, so that I always got up to it clean and tidy.
• I laid out the girls' school clothes and my work clothes every single night.
• I vacuumed 3 times a week (as opposed to my usual rate of once every 2 weeks. It helped that we recently got a new vacuum cleaner)
• I changed all the bed sheets twice - but this was partly due to the dog weeing on them in the micro-seconds I wasn't watching him and before bedroom doors were closed.
• I maintained constant supply of snacks, fruit and veggies in the house, cooked rice in the fridge and meat for dinners. That's so much easier when you don't have to account for a spouse eating things from the fridge out of schedule!
• I re-used or froze leftovers.
• I didn't faff around with the snooze button or set a new alarm on my phone for an extra 15 minutes when the alarm went off - because there was no-one next to me to thump me and say "Wake up, and for Christ's sake get up or set your alarm later!"

None of this is new to me or anyone of course, and these are all things I have done before, but when you work full-time especially it is very hard to keep them all up consistently. And in fact - my main beef with all these well-meaning time management tips - it is not actually physically possible to keep them all up  consistently. Things happen, we get tired, we make mistakes, we have to work late or someone is sick, etc. But, I did it these last 2 weeks.

And along with all this - more awesomeness - I found I gave a lot more time to my kids. I spent more time talking with them, hanging around with them and doing stuff with them. What I did a lot less of was playing on my phone, tweeting, blogging, scanning news sites and Zite, talking on the phone, and reading.

Also, I have to say, it was fun and easy to spend time with them as just the three of us. That doesn't mean that's the way I want things to be. But it was nice.

The downside is, I rarely got to bed before midnight, so I am now a little bit exhausted.

And here it is midnight again, and I still have some tidying to do. We pick up Y. from the airport tomorrow and then take the kids to school and me to work, so I definitely need some sleep.

Goodnight!